• PLEASE NOTE - the TEAS facebook page has been hacked, take extreme care when visiting the page, for further information visit here

No Veg Diet? Sherwood pellet diet?

Angela99

Angela99

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Mar 22, 2018
Messages
247
Reaction score
232
Points
330
Location
Vancouver BC CANADA
Hi there! I adopted two sweet males 6 months ago and I'm still confused about healthy diet. I was looking at feeding them Sherwood pellets instead of what I get from my hay guy pellets.... which guinea pigs love! Anyhow their sure suggests a diet of only hay-grass for a few days and they suggest hardly any veggies!

I feed daily Wheat grass, red pepper, cilantro, celery, endive, and treats of apple and carrot and dill (tiny bite pieces)
No leaves... They refuse to eat. SO their diet seems pretty healthy to me but now I feel like I should cut veg intake in half. Why I'm confused... because I thought a water rich diet would naturally flush their system and help them to pee but it seems I'm wrong?

I give them low calcium filtered water. Does anyone have experience with the Sherwood pellets?
 

Attachments

  • 20180803_172646.jpg
    20180803_172646.jpg
    89.1 KB · Views: 3
Ive never heard of this so I’ve just looked it up online. It seems it’s to do with preventing bladder issues by cutting down/out veg to get them to eat more hay and drink more water. Do your pigs eat plenty of hay?
A balanced diet is 80% hay, vegetables and small portion of pellets. The veg provide essential vitamins particularly vit c which guinea pigs can’t make themselves so cutting down veg runs the risk of causing other problems.
 
This is from the site. It does say temporary at the end but the whole article is basically suggesting that veggies are not good. My piggies are very healthy and spoiled but I want the best pellets and they hate Oxbow pellets which is low calcium and it does have fillers and grains in there too. Sherwood has none of that. I just want to be sure that veggies are OK

"Encourage MORE hay consumption by reducing the amount of fruits, veggies, treats…. and even greens that you give your pet. If you feed less of these favorite items your pet will eat more hay. This will increase the amount of water they drink and improve their urinary health. In fact, a temporary grass-hay-only fast can increase the amount of water they drink and their urine volume by over 400% and it will naturally flush their bladder.
 
Veggies absolutely are ok to be given to them. As I said above, they need them to get certain vitamins. Vitamin c for example does not store so even if it is added to the pellets, it very quickly spoils so is no longer present and vit c is absolutely essential for guinea pigs.
My two boys have a very small amount of pellets once a day (I am in the process of moving them to a grain free version), they then each get cup of veggies a day (split into one half in the morning and one half in the evening) but the main part of their diet is a variety of hay (meadow and Timothy hay). They eat so much of it that I refill their hay piles multiple times a day
 
Personally I think it's quite a smart business plan to advise cutting out a portion of their diet to replace with their own product. But it's not advice I would follow, my own pigs get more than the 1 cup recommended amount of veg and less pellets, yet they still go through about 5kg of hay between them and drink loads.
If for whatever reason I fed their pellets however I would certainly cut out a lot of the veg I feed due to concern over the amount of calcium they would get from an alfalfa based pellet plus the veg mix I feed but that's about it. As well as being nutritious, my pigs veg meal does wonders for their enrichment and mental stimulation, providing good opportunities for them to interact with each other, use their brain and jaw to tear up the big chunks or work out how to get inside their tomatoes XD so it's not something I would be comfortable removing from them.
 
I think they are right to some extent as I think a lot of owners overfeed the veggies. Veggies make up just 10-15% of the piggies diet with 80% being hay. Hay is vital for fibre and also to keep the teeth a healthy length so absolutely should be encouraged.

As a side note I would not feed apple and carrot regularly even as treats as both are high in sugar and apples quite acidic. Too much can cause health problems. Perhaps just once a week on each of these
 
My Finn and Lara prefer veggies so I give them veggies three times a day. Their veggies intake may amount to about a large cup a day for each piggy. They also eat hay all day long, more than veggies. I also give them Oxbow pallets for them to munch on. I read somewhere I can skip pallets if I give them enough veggies but I won't take away their pallets because they enjoy munching on their Oxbow pallets.
 
Eriathwen said:
Personally I think it's quite a smart business plan to advise cutting out a portion of their diet to replace with their own product. But it's not advice I would follow, my own pigs get more than the 1 cup recommended amount of veg and less pellets, yet they still go through about 5kg of hay between them and drink loads.
If for whatever reason I fed their pellets however I would certainly cut out a lot of the veg I feed due to concern over the amount of calcium they would get from an alfalfa based pellet plus the veg mix I feed but that's about it. As well as being nutritious, my pigs veg meal does wonders for their enrichment and mental stimulation, providing good opportunities for them to interact with each other, use their brain and jaw to tear up the big chunks or work out how to get inside their tomatoes XD so it's not something I would be comfortable removing from them.
Click to expand...
Thank you! Your right. I have Oxbow low calcium pellets they hate... but I thought of trying Sherwood... it's high in calcium so your right on as to why they suggest cutting veggies. I guess it's not wise to do both. Right now they love the pellets I get from my Hay guy and I know it's higher in calcium and has fillers. I've asked for nutritional breakdown but he's never sent it to me. I see white stains all over the fleece. I know it's normal but I just want to be sure I'm doing everything right.
 
Piggies&buns said:
Veggies absolutely are ok to be given to them. As I said above, they need them to get certain vitamins. Vitamin c for example does not store so even if it is added to the pellets, it very quickly spoils so is no longer present and vit c is absolutely essential for guinea pigs.
My two boys have a very small amount of pellets once a day (I am in the process of moving them to a grain free version), they then each get cup of veggies a day (split into one half in the morning and one half in the evening) but the main part of their diet is a variety of hay (meadow and Timothy hay). They eat so much of it that I refill their hay piles multiple times a day
Click to expand...
I didn't realize that. Maybe I'll get Oxbow vitamin C tabs. I give them 2-3 pieces of red pepper a day. They won't eat green.
 
If they have 2 or 3 pieces of pepper, they won't need vitamin c capsules. As long as they have enough in their veg, hay and pellets there is no need. Because mine get a lot of grass and foraged leaves in summer, I only give them a few bits of veg, although they get the cupful each when grass etc is more scarce.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top